Lists #1

About:
For over three years I saved my everyday hand-written lists (e.g., groceries, to-do, planning, etc.) and solicited lists of all types and sizes from friends, family and strangers. I then hand-cut and pasted together a 7 inch wide by over 15 ft. long roll of paper to create a “master list” for recording information (name of list-maker, date and type) about each list I collected. For the Corporeal Chronologies show at Elastic Wall Projects I installed the master list on a large wall with the collected lists clustered around it. Each list was hung with a thumbtack and then coiled with wire that was strung to connect with a second thumbtack placed next to the list’s corresponding entry line on the master list (see below).

The installation was over 10 feet tall by almost 6 feet wide, with a portion of the master list rolled at the bottom (and awaiting future list additions).

Questions/Ideas I Was Exploring:
1) How to entice people to become participants in the creation of an artwork. Ideally, this would lead to a sense of connection and community around the experience of making art.

2) Continue the Duchampian exploration of what it means to use (transform? reveal?) everyday, human-made objects as art objects (e.g., is a grocery list a piece of art if I say it is?).

3) What do individual lists reveal about the lives of individual list-makers? When many different lists, made by many different individuals, are placed next to one another, what differences/similarities are revealed across human experience? What do our lists reveal about our need to create order in the universe?

4) How to create a visually and conceptually compelling artwork using a collection of disparate, non-art objects collected from many different sources.